This invention relates generally to projectiles, and, more particularly to high density armor penetrating projectiles which incorporate therein heavy long penetrator cores.
The primary function of the armor piercing projectile is to penetrate the armor surrounding vulnerable components of, or personnel within intricate machines such as personnel carries, tanks and equivalent armored vehicles. Heretofore, this projectile design contained a hardened steel penetrator that was the full diameter of the projectile and substantially shorter than the projectile length in order to reduce weight so that initial launch velocity would be high, thus obtaining maximum penetrator energy. In order to increase damage at the target, some of the former projectiles contained, in addition to the penetrator, an incendiary material forward of the hardened steel penetrator. Because the projectile penetrator was large in diameter, a large amount of armor would have to be displaced to allow penetration. Thus the armor absorbed a large amount of the penetrating energy of the projectile and thinner armor could prevent passage of the projectile. Also by making the armor of a high hardness steel material, many such hardened steel projectiles would be shattered upon impact, reducing projectile penetration considerably.
The most efficient and effective armor penetrating projectiles should be assembled with extremely heavy long penetrator cores. However, aerodynamic stability requirements dictate that conventional metal encapsulated armor piercing projectiles as described hereinabove be assembled with heavy short (length to diameter) penetrator cores or lightweight long (length to diameter) penetrators. Heretofore, providing a heavy long penetrator core within an aerodynamic and spin stabilized projectile has been difficult to achieve.